Protect the corporate brand from activism

This article gives advice to businesses trying to fend-off 'activist investors' who are trying to break the company up; and if a break up becomes inevitable, how to manage the brand.

Protect the corporate brand from activism

Howard BelkSiegel+Gale

Brand owners can resist pressure from activist investors to break up their businesses by valuing their brands as a portfolio, understanding how each contributes to the other and to the parent brand.

One of the challenges for CEOs comes from the onslaught of activist investors clamouring for their companies to be split into pieces. Who are activist investors? Simply put, these are investors who want to actively influence the corporate strategies of the companies in which they invest. Activists usually take significant equity positions in target companies they believe are undervalued...

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